Button Man

For other uses, see button man.

Button Man
Publication information
Publisher	Rebellion Developments
Schedule	Weekly
Format	Anthology
Genre	Crime
Publication date	1992 -
Creative team
Created by	John Wagner Arthur Ranson
Written by	John Wagner
Artist(s)	Arthur Ranson Frazer Irving
Colourist(s)	Fiona Staples (Book IV)
Collected editions
The Killing Game	ISBN 1-904265-05-7
The Confessions of Harry Exton	ISBN 1-905437-70-6

Button Man is a comic strip created for leading British comic 2000 AD, written by John Wagner and illustrated by Arthur Ranson.

Plot

Harry Exton, ex-mercenary, is a "Button Man", a hired killer pitted against other killers in an underground sport. Each works for a mysterious "Voice", a rich man of unknown identity. The object of the game is to kill your opponent, or capture him and take his marker - the first two joints of a finger. Button Men who lose three fingers are shot anyway. The "voices" profit from the game by gambling on the outcome, and a ruthless killer like Harry Exton can make a modestly wealthy man extremely rich. Exton decides to quit, only to discover that leaving the Button Man game isn't so easy.

Publication

Button Man ran for four series, and remains one of the best-selling collections of 2000 AD strips (other than Judge Dredd) ever published.

The series outings, all written by John Wagner, are:

• Button Man:
  • "Book I: The Killing Game" (with Arthur Ranson, in 2000 AD #780-791, 1992)
  • "Book II: The Confession of Harry Exton" (with Arthur Ranson, in 2000 AD #904-919, 1994)
  • "Book III: Killer Killer" (with Arthur Ranson, in 2000 AD prog 2001 & #1223-1233, 2001)
  • "Book IV: The Hitman's Daughter" (with Frazer Irving, in 2000 AD #1551-1566, 2007)

Collected editions

The stories are being collected into trade paperbacks:

• The Killing Game (88 pages, Kitchen Sink Press, May 1994, ISBN 0-87816-276-3, Rebellion, hardcover, August 2003, ISBN 1-904265-05-7, softcover, January 2007, ISBN 1-905437-19-6)
• The Confession of Harry Exton (112 pages, Rebellion, August 2003, ISBN 1-905437-70-6)
• Killer Killer (96 pages, Rebellion, June 2009, ISBN 1-906735-09-3)
• The Hitman's Daughter (96 pages, Rebellion, forthcoming, ISBN 978-1-906735-42-5)

Awards

• 2000: Nominated for the Eagle Award for "Character Most Worthy of Own Ongoing Title"

Film

Movie rights are owned by Dreamworks, which has co-opted the producers of Wagner's A History of Violence. The film was rumoured to be planned for release in 2008. The option has been renewed by Dreamworks most recently in July 2010 so the film may yet see the light of day.

References

• Button Man at 2000 AD online
• Harry Exton at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)
• Button Man at IMDb

External links

• Co-creator Arthur Ranson's website
• Review of The Killing Game